Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/168

150 exemplified in practice. Ariosto does not, like Tasso, convey the impression of a man above his time, and only depressed to its level by unpropitious circumstances. He is the child of his age, at the summit of its average elevation, but not transcending this. Yet it would have been well for Italy if her princes and statesmen had generally acted upon those ideas of honour and loyalty which they found and doubtless admired in their favourite poet. Such precepts as the following, even though enforced by the teacher's example, were in their view much too good for ordinary practice: